Most of England’s smart motorways are poor value for money, official reports find

AA says long-awaited evaluations show schemes are a catastrophic waste of time, money and effort'

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Most of England's smart motorway schemes have proved poor or very poor value for money, according to assessments by the government agency that built them.

Official evaluations from National Highways, some of which had been held back by the Department for Transport (DfT) since completion in 2023, showed that a slew of big projects to convert the hard shoulder on the M1, M4, M6 and M25 were rated as poor" or very poor" value.